


What The Water Gave Me

by poetatertot



Series: Nox Et Stellarum [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief/Mourning, References to FFX Lore, Summoner!Noctis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-15 02:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetatertot/pseuds/poetatertot
Summary: Catastrophe strikes the peaceful islands of Galahd—Sin's approach, its unending destruction. In an instant, everything Nyx holds dear is lost.And then, amidst the ruins, a summoner appears.





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noctislucent (Baekhanded)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baekhanded/gifts).



> For Gabi.

_Time it took us_

_To where the water was_

_That's what the water gave me_

 

_++_

 

Two minutes.

A thousand things could be done in two minutes. He could braid his hair, or gut a fish. He could whittle a stick. Two minutes was just enough time to do the inconsequential.

Two minutes was all he had. One hundred and twenty measly seconds. And then, there was no time at all.

_“Nyx!”_

He jerked up his head. The trap in his hands slipped, razor-edge biting deep into his thumb. Blood immediately began to well.

“Shit,” he hissed.

Somewhere behind him the trees began to rustle—Libertus, crashing through the undergrowth like a three-legged boar. _“Nyx!”_

“Over here,” Nyx called. He set the trap down at his feet and straightened, ignoring his lower back. “I’m here—”

Libertus exploded through the trees. He gleamed, sweat-soaked and mud-slick from the thighs down. His eyes practically bulged from his skull.

“Nyx,” he panted. “Nyx, we have to go back, we have to—”

“What?” Nyx’s eyes snapped to the sky. “It’s not going to rain another hour—”

_“No,_ ” Libertus gasped. He bent over, knuckles gripping his knees. He looked like he was going to puke. “It’s _coming, Nyx, it’s coming—”_

Nyx’s blood froze. The jungle’s gentle roar dulled, slowing to a stop. The clouds above hung, suspended.

_It’s coming._

Selena. His mother. _Crowe—_

_“No,”_ he breathed. _Oh gods, no._

They tore down jungle footpaths on clumsy feet, dodging hanging ferns. Mud sucked at every footstep; Nyx took one wrong turn and slipped down an incline. He barely felt the rock that sliced open his calf.

Down, down to the water. Down to their village, where homes floated over the shores like drifting lotuses. The day was barely half-over— all the children would be wading for shells in the low tide. Selena would be with them, keeping watch.

_It’s coming._

Libertus stumbled over a hidden stump. Nyx’s fingers bit into his forearm, dragging him upright. Every breath burned in his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.

Two minutes was all it would take to reach the highest hill. There, the paths widened to roads for transport. They would be able to see it coming. They would be able to see—

_Sin._

They burst into the clearing. The jungle beneath them stretched towards the beach, a roiling, green mass of living sea. Wind roared in Nyx’s ears, carving out all other sounds beyond his heartbeat. He ran to the edge—and stopped.

Two minutes. Two minutes to reach the look-out; two minutes to know, and to fear. It wasn’t enough time. There never was going to be enough time.

Sin rose, and the ocean with it. There was no sun; there was no light.

And then there was nothing left.

Nyx fell to his knees, and screamed.

 

There truly was nothing left.

Nyx didn’t know what he expected. He’d heard stories of what Sin had done to the first, to those who lived in their machina-riddled cities. He’d heard of what it did to countless cities after that. Lives lost; history destroyed.

Some might have said him living was a miracle. Nyx only saw it as a nightmare.

_Wake up,_ he thought desperately. His wooden legs would barely carry him. His chest ached to burst open and wet the ground with his blood. _Please, let me wake up._

Particles mixed with rain, painting the landscape sand grey. Nyx stumbled past shredded planks and scattered fronds, past the bare bones of a whole world crushed to smithereens. There were no clothing lines or docked boats, no bonfire pits or thatch-roof houses. Everything had been wiped off the face of the earth.

And perhaps that was worse. If there had been something— _anything_ left for him to take—then he would have proof. Proof that they existed. Proof that his whole world hadn’t been sucked into a place he could not follow.

He had nothing.

Libertus walked out towards the surf. Rubble floated on the tide, scouring white sand with jagged, painful grooves. Nyx watched him wade out to his calves and sink into the wash. His shoulders, soaked anew, began to visibly shudder.

Nyx turned away.

Instinct bore him home, but there _was_ no home. His house— every plank, every cord, every piece of palm and tar they’d used to build—was gone. There weren’t even perforations in the earth. Sin had plucked the whole body from the sand and swallowed it whole.

Nyx stared at that spot. Countless years; countless memories. Selena’s first steps across the floor. Mother’s rocking chair by the window. Woven rugs and collected shells, scores of song and stories, magic spun by Galahdian tongue and Galahdian belief. All of it— erased.

The weight crushed him. He felt himself tremble; he felt his lungs clench. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to. He was heavy, _so heavy,_ desperate to fly apart and forget, to go with them. He didn’t want to _be_ there anymore, didn’t want to bear it—

But he was here. And there was never going to be anyone coming back.

He wept. The tears burned hot down his cheeks, salting his tongue. Desolation poisoned his every breath; isolation shattered his every word. He was a scoured shell with the meat ripped to pieces.

He wept, and the heavens wept with him.

At some point Libertus came to his side. He looked as ruined as Nyx felt, hollow-eyed and puffy. He trembled like a leaf on the wind; his fingers, when they brushed Nyx’s shoulder, were icy-cold.

“We—” He stopped, coughing. Sin had stolen their voices, too. “We have to find a summoner.”

It was the right thing to do. The longer they mourned, the longer the souls of the departed lingered. Stay too long and they would be corrupted. _Jealous of the living,_ Yevon’s teachings said. _They must be sent to the Farplane or they will never know peace._

Nyx wanted to stand there forever, but they couldn’t. It had already been too long.

But where could they find a summoner? How? The Galahdian temple was on another island, one far greater than the tiny outcrop they called home. Nobody would be able to reach them for days.

_It’s just us,_  Nyx thought. He looked up into the sky, but there were no pyreflies. No trace of those lost. _Just us, and the unreachable._

The thought was not a kind one.

“The out-look,” he finally managed. “We’ll have to, to go light—” He froze.

At the clearing edge was a man. He looked unlike anyone Nyx had ever seen before—a dream, another impossibility shorn from Sin’s flesh. He was dressed in flowing blue and white, bright even amidst the rain, and carried a crescent moon staff across his back.

His face fell at the sight of Nyx and Libertus, on the ruined sands of their world’s execution. Nyx watched his mouth move, twisting around bitter, heavy shapes, before he closed it.

“You,” Nyx croaked. _“You.”_

He stumbled forward through the sand. The man didn’t move. His eyes, bluer than the open ocean, followed Nyx’s movements with painful recognition. He’d seen this before. He was familiar with what Sin left behind.

Nyx stopped a foot away. Even with grief clouding his thoughts, he knew better than to grab a summoner. Their power and status made them shining icons among men; untold magics crowded their flesh. And they never traveled—

“Noct!”

Three more men burst from the jungle. Nyx took in their black garb and hardened bodies, the sheathed weapons at their backs. _Guardians._

“You should be more careful,” one said. “We haven’t—” He paused, taking in the scene. “Oh, dear.”

“Summoner,” Libertus rasped. He’d stumbled up to Nyx’s side. “Summoner, _please._ ”

They all knew what he wanted.

The summoner looked back at his guardians. The one who’d spoken nodded, making a subtle gesture. He looked back.

“It’s the least I can do.” His voice startled a note somewhere deep in Nyx’s conscious— a low, clear bell being struck. “I’m sorry there isn’t more.”

The pain in his eyes echoed Nyx’s soul. A throbbing, deep and heavy, thrummed from his chest, forcing a new prickle of tears. Nyx cleared his throat. “Please,” he murmured. “It’s all we’re asking for.”

The summoner’s gaze swept out over the beach. The ruins left weren’t much to work with, Nyx knew; there was usually ceremony before this. Preparations, with burial flowers and wrapped boats. All they had was debris.

“We’ll make it work,” the largest guardian said. “With your permission.”

“Yes,” Nyx said. “Please.”

They worked in silence. The boards left were little more than wooden shards, splintering into Nyx’s calluses and crumbling over his clothes. They took cord from Libertus’s pack, cloth from one of the guardian’s, and made what best they could.

The end result was little more than a wicker basket— hardly large enough to cradle a child, much less a whole village. It was all they had. It would have to be enough.

_It never will be,_ Nyx thought. He pressed blooms into the weave with trembling, cut fingers. _Mother deserved more than this. Selena deserved more than this._

All his world, narrowed to a single, fragile basket on the water.

In the end it was Nyx who carried the burial to tide. He waded in with the weighted basket, feeling the warm water seep into his boots, and remembered stepping in that morning to wash his sleepiness away. The memory existed in someone else’s life now, far and unreachable.

He stared down into the water. The basket weighed almost nothing, but his arms couldn’t let it go. He was hewn from stone.

_Let go, Nyx. You have to let go._

Nyx closed his eyes. He thought of his sister’s laugh, of his mother’s smile. He imagined their arms wrapping around his, guiding his fingers one by one to pry free.

_Let go._

He barely felt himself move to shore. Libertus rushed to meet him, guiding him to his side. Together they stood and watched the sending.

There were no commands. They spoke no words; they sang no songs. The rustic familiarity of village deaths had been erased with its history, and in its place, only traditions of the faith remained.

Instead, he walked on water.

The summoner— _Noct,_ his guardians called him—cast no spells. He spoke no magic. The water, unbidden, stilled at his feet, smoothing outward into a plane of endless glass. He moved out onto it with careful steps, stave poised in one hand.

Nyx held his breath.

The dance was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Fluid, graceful steps; careful curves, extending limbs. Nyx watched, transfixed, as Noct swung his stave wide to the heavens. His body moved as if wrenched by invisible strings, spinning, his blue skirt and flowing sleeves billowing with every move.

He was gossamer, light like the wind itself.

And then the pyreflies came—crystalline teardrops spun loose, prisms shattering against the sky. The light of them burned Nyx’s vision; his eyes watered with their brilliance.

They rose from the ocean upward, streaming and swirling above into the clouds. Grief and wonder tangled in Nyx’s throat. A hundred spirits departing; a hundred lights reflecting on Noct’s skin.

Water swelled beneath Noct’s bare feet. He rose, staff extended, body furiously twisting with the ocean’s spray. The pyreflies hummed and glowed above their heads into the clouds.

Nyx felt it, then—a piece of him, ragged and bloodied, tearing free with a final _snap._ It rose within him, swelling out and pressing between his lips, and made for the sky. The hole left wept blood; his body screamed in agony.

He didn’t realize he’d fallen until a touch brushed his scalp. He stared, vision blurred with tears, at those bare feet. They weren’t even damp.

“It’s done,” Noct murmured. His touch trembled in Nyx’s hair. “They’re resting now.”

Nyx looked up.

Against the clouds, Noct was cut from ink and bone. His black hair fell into his eyes, but couldn’t mask the bright sheen of unshed tears on his eyelashes. He was perilously beautiful, shaped from moonstone like a star flung to earth.

Nyx wanted to hate him for it. Here, at the end of his world, he wanted to be left to mourn. To swallow his sadness and drink its bitterness. And yet—

_And yet—_

“I’m sorry,” Noct whispered. “I wish I could’ve—” His voice broke.

Nyx rose. Every limb trembled violently, but he made himself stand straight. It forced Noct to look up at him, for Nyx to get a good look at his reflection.

“Thank you,” he said. It was all he could say. It would have to be enough.

And for once, it was.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be references to FFX lore in this series (Yevon religious teachings, the summoner paradigm, pyreflies) but background knowledge shouldn't be necessary. I like to clarify things before I toss them in.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated!
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://poetatertot.tumblr.com/) \+ [playlist for this series](https://open.spotify.com/user/xelaperez36/playlist/1qr5jDCyTaqgV6RLKu2t0s?si=wNeSDRRbTcWz7mKDAdsC9A)


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